


the same mistakes you made

by Jaybird_Wings



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Beholding! Georgie, Gen, Georgie ends up at the magnus institute, Set Around Season 1, Stranger! Jon, Uhhh couldn be read as a ship fic I guess?, i wrote this instead of my college essay folks, pre-the unknowing at least, uh most the people who show up are minor mentions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-03
Updated: 2019-09-03
Packaged: 2020-10-06 00:47:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20498102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaybird_Wings/pseuds/Jaybird_Wings
Summary: She slumps in her seat, “You can tell me what’s going on, you know.”Jon's face hardens uncharacteristically at that, and his hands grip the table.“Georgie, I- something is watching me.”Or, Jon goes missing and in Georgie's search for him, she ends up at the Magnus Institute.





	the same mistakes you made

**Author's Note:**

> I have to prepare college applications but wrote this instead. Enjoy.

Georgie nearly spits out her coffee when she sees Jon outside the cafe she was in.

She stands up quickly, bumping into the table and spilling coffee all over her hand but she continues to run up to him.

“Jon!” She finally shouts to stop him from crossing the street.

He looks startled, scared even.

“Hello, Georgie.” He turns to say to her.

Jon looks even worse than when she last saw him. His eyes are bloodshot, and his hair and clothes are a mess. He's usually more conscious about looking put together.

“You won’t answer my texts.” She says bluntly, pulling him along to sit down with her.

He visibly cringes at that.

“I’ve been keeping my phone off. Sorry.” He sounds apologetic enough, but she knows he’s not telling her everything.

He hates it when people worry about him, and that always annoyed her to no end. But the way he glances around like he’s paranoid something is going to jump out is concerning. She's more worried than annoyed.

But still annoyed.

She slumps in her seat, “You can tell me what’s going on, you know.”

Jon’s face hardens uncharacteristically at that, and his hands grip the table.

“Georgie, I- something is _watching me_.”

Jon is a practical man. In their university years together, he even scoffed at their classmates' stories of supernatural events. He doesn’t believe in that sort of stuff. But he says something, not someone.

She doesn’t know how to help, though. She knows nothing of fear entities and Jon is restless, unable to bear being still for too long, and he leaves.

Perhaps he’s afraid of feeling seen.

Georgie regrets this being their last conversation since his disappearance.

For a while she’s frustrated, trying to contact him any way she can. But Jon doesn’t fill her thoughts, and she lives her life.

Until the police are knocking at her door.

The ask her about Jonathan Sims.

She answers, “I last saw him weeks ago, just a quick run in on the street. What’s wrong?”

“He stopped showing up for work, and then his apartment was found empty about a week ago.”

They don’t look worried, but tired. Different from Jon. They don’t look concerned.

She has a horrible feeling he’s never going to be found. But worrying about that doesn’t help anyone.

He mentioned feeling watched, and that’s all she has to work off his strange disappearance.

So, she gets working.

She can almost pretend life can continue on as normal. She greets her coworkers, hangs out with friends on the weekends, and posts silly pictures of her cat on social media. But when she gets home, she picks up her research.

Jon’s an easily riled man, and she reads on cases of those with scopophobia.

The fear of being watched.

It’s a common one in all degrees of fashion.

But her memories of the cafe run-in with him are filled with a strange static, and she remembers a strange relief whenhe left.

Like something had stopped looking at her.

Jon’s skepticism had meant she never mentioned her strange run-in with death. She knows weird things happen.

On the internet, there are hundreds of phony ghost stories of watchers. She has no way of knowing any meaning behind them, and she quickly burns out on that end.

The police had said his phone was missing, but they couldn’t track anything from it. No strange phone calls or locations. She felt like maybe if she shot a text, he would finally answer and apologize for worrying her so much.

But she never hits send.

At work, she overhears a coworker complaining about something.

“The place was so creepy, gave me the chills.” The guy- Charlie- whined.

Another nods, “Yeah, one of my friend’s siblings works there and it’s all sketch. Especially her boss- this Bouchard guy.”

“Hey Georgie,” Charlie called out, “have you ever given a statement at the Magnus Institute?”

The name sounds familiar, and she remembers some of the creepy stories she read mentioning going to give their statement.

“Don’t they collect ghost stories or something?” She sets her things down as she responds.

“No- well yes, but they just take statements from anyone who experienced something weird. Do follow-ups and stuff, don’t know how they have the funding. Anyways, I went to talk about my weird incident with my last client- because the higher-ups obviously don’t seem concerned. But it’s such a creepy place.”

Their chatter grows quiet, while her thoughts grow louder.

The Magnus Institute specializes in the esoteric and strange.

She looks up for any job offerings.

The Bouchard her coworker had mentioned was a strange man. Looked like he always knew more than anybody in the room.

“And what interests you about our archives?”

She’s taken aback by her thoughts of Jon and his disappearance. She promised herself she wouldn’t focus on him during the interview, her possible future boss doesn’t need to hear about her tragic missing friend.

But thoughts about Alex and the dead bodies also pop up. She’s been caught in this mess ever since she survived.

Maybe this whole thing would scare her off, but she’s fearless.

Maybe it’s stupid to chase her ex, but Jon wasn’t just some ex she left on bad terms with.

He’s her friend, and she knows no is going to look for him.

She answers him with the answers she prepared, though, about interests in the institute and the subject of the archives. She talks about opportunity and working hard, but Elias looks like the interview has already ended.

Maybe her bullshit answers won’t suffice.

Contrary to her belief, Elias already Knew why she was there. He was also interested in finding Jonathan Sims.

Gertrude has been proving herself a reckless Archivist anyways.

Georgie does get the job, and it’s all very strange. She has the position of archival assistant, where she’ll have access to more records and stories.

Gertrude is nice enough, but something about her tells Georgie she should be avoided.She has to be keen on that kind of instinct because fear isn’t going to tell her anything. 

It’s annoying, actually, when she’s busied with organizing papers or doing follow-ups more than anything.

Georgie knocks on the door of Allie Kim, the sister mentioned in the statement of Eliza Kim.

Allie is cordial enough, answering questions with curt responses and offering tea.

“Our mother was a logical person. The shift was so strange, and no one seems to believe it. The police want to chalk it up to sudden drug addiction or something, but mom wasn’t like that.”

Georgie sips at her tea and offers her condolences.

“The last time I saw her, months ago, she mentioned how I never answer her calls. But I never received any from her. I just- she wasn’t alone. She said she was afraid of isolation but she had us.”

Loneliness and fear.

Huh, she read the transcript of a statement about isolation just that morning.

Sure, the esoteric is freaky and scary, but all the statements were so full… of fear.

The opportunity of being head archivist is too good to just let up for Georgie, despite the circumstances that happened to Gertrude.

She’s getting a feeling that Elias Bouchard and his Magnus Institute are not what they seem.

But she reads transcripts and finds threads of a story she doesn’t understand. Other stories of people seeing eyes, or weirder things of meat, bugs, or darkness.

Something is connecting these statements- and it’s fear. Fear of the dark, fear of bugs, fear of isolation, and so many more she tries to organize.

She’s collecting a folder of all the statements about eyes or the fear of being watched. Most of those people are still alive to talk about it or survived their weird encounter.

She’s hopeful.

Martin is nice enough, if not a little quiet, but Sasha and Tim are a joy to be around.

Now that she’s head archivist, she doesn’t need to do tedious follow-ups. Her coworkers do. Sasha and Tim do pristine jobs, while Martin’s work comes off… well, less professional. She hesitates to send him to cases she thinks may connect to finding Jon, but he’s the only one free after a statement about someone’s brother disappearing.

Martin comes back from the follow-up and mentions something odd.

“I met a man who asked about you, Georgie.” He stammers.

“Oh?” She looks up from the box of statements she was looking through.

“Yeah, kind of creepy, really- he looked… uh, he- or was it- I can’t... I’m sorry, can’t seem to recall what he looked like.”

Martin looks so genuinely confused.

She sighs, “Did he look tired?”

“Uh- oh yes! Yes, I remember thinking ‘god this man looks like he’s run himself ragged’… uh, and he was kind of rude. I didn’t tell him anything, obviously, but he said uh to… to stop looking.”

Jon.

She’s certain of it. The idiot couldn’t even tell her face to face to stop.

“Martin, if you see him again, tell him he should say that to me in person.”

He’s fine, in some sense then. Not lost in some tomb or infested with bugs. He wants to stay Unseen, though.

She’s getting an uncanny feeling that she’s getting stuck in the gaze of the thing that Jon feared and escaped from so desperately.

But, Jon is out there, not stripped apart by the mysterious eye that keeps showing up. And something is wrong with him because Martin can't remember him.

When she asks Martin about him again, he can hardly recall any details. She feels a little guilty for distressing him so much, but it answers... something. 

While walking back to the institute with coffees for everyone, someone bumps her shoulder. Before the coffees fall, the person helps her balance them.

“Hey watch where you-” she snaps, but freezes as she looks up at the stranger’s face.

“Sorry about that.” He whispers hoarsely like he isn’t used to his own vocal cords, or like he doesn't want to be heard.

“Do I- sorry, I thought I… recognized you. But I Do Not Know You.”

Something statics in her head and something weird is happening right now.

She doesn’t like the feeling, but she can See Him if she tries hard enough. She can Look Closer than others can.

So, she looks closer and asks, “Or do I?”

The man walks slowly away, and though she swears she didn’t look away from him, his face gets lost in the crowd of strangers.

“I quit, Mr. Bouchard.”

“That won’t do, Ms. Barker. You’ve already grown so well into the role of the Archivist.”

Chills run down her back. She’s been too focused on Jon to realize she’s been sitting at the heart of an entity all this time.

“I’m _taken_.” She hisses. The End touched her life long before The Eye ever did.

He gestures vaguely, “And affiliations can change. Like your dear friend- Jon, was it? He was almost ours as well, but he hid his face.”

It’s nearly impossible to hide from the ceaseless watcher, unless-

“He made a deal with The Stranger.” She realizes.

She’s not going to find Jon, because it’s not really him anymore. He can wear another’s skin and become Not Himself. He can become unrecognizable, even to The Eye.

And she’s stuck as the Archivist.

Damnit, Jon.

“Statement begins, received from the subject.” She speaks clearly into the tape recorder.

The person across from her clears his throat, “I am the entity previously known as Jonathan Sims.”

It’s Not Him, but she still smiles.

Took him forever to come to visit her at her new job.

**Author's Note:**

> Uhh so in a perfect world I'm doing Inktober this year AND NaNoWriMo so I gotta prepare bc I'm also been promoted in my theatre program and am going to be So Busy (like the director didn't tell me... why...) 
> 
> Might be the last fan fiction of 2019 from me folks, but probably not bc how could I stay away?


End file.
